For a long time, my day would start the same way. Sometime between six and seven AM a little voice would come through the monitor, telling me “daddy, its time to get up now”, repeated endlessly until I dragged myself up and went to get her. My own two-foot tall alarm clock.
The transition to “big girl” bed was astonishingly easy and the monitor was soon turned off. As much as I enjoy listening to my daughter sing, I don’t need to hear the ABCs at full volume at three o’clock in the morning. My day would start with a soft tapping on my shoulder, telling me “daddy, its time to get up now.”
I no longer have any idea what time Alaina gets up in the morning.
It seems that as soon as the sun reaches her window, she gets up, goes potty, plays for a while, and eventually comes to get me when she starts to get hungry or needs the channel changed. She dresses herself, often looking like an extra from a clown show or Xena, Warrior Princess. The hardest part of the morning often is trying to explain to her why she can’t wear a sundress to school in the middle of winter.
Alaina has always been very independent. Her first words might have been “mommy” and “daddy”, but her first full sentence was “I do it myself!” She gets angry when told she can’t do things because she is “too little”. Things like driving a car or helping clear ice from the gutters. She’s starting to insist that she doesn’t need a babysitter and wants to know when it will be her turn to be “in charge” when left alone with her older sister.
So I was surprised but not overly concerned when I was instead awakened by a ringing phone at 9:30 a few days ago. I didn’t panic but also didn’t waste much time getting downstairs. An independent child can be a great thing if they are aware of their limitations, but it wouldn’t be out of character for her to decide she was going to scramble her own eggs.
She was found on the couch, dresses absurdly as always. Breakfast consisted of her sister’s leftover Valentine’s Day candy and most, if not quite all, of the juice she had poured seemed to have ended up in her cup. The television was tuned to Fight Club on the IFC channel, a great movie but not exactly suitable for three-year-olds.
The phone call that had alerted me to this turn of events had been from her older sister, concerned because Alaina had used my cell phone to call her at school to ask what the code was for mommy’s IPad.
I’m very proud of the little person Alaina is turning into and was grateful for the extra sleep, but she has been admonished to come and get me when she wakes up in the morning.
Regardless of how she perceives herself, Alaina needs to stay daddy’s little baby for a little while longer.
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Originally published on Musings of a Thirsty Daddy
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